KR20130096294A - Inter-frequency measurement control in a multi-carrier system - Google Patents

Abstract

Techniques for signaling the ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation configurations and measurement gap requirements corresponding to carrier aggregation configurations are disclosed. Each carrier configuration may include one or more frequency bands and the mobile terminal may provide an indication of measurement gap requirements for all or a subset of its supported frequency bands when operating in carrier aggregation configurations. Measurement gap requirements may correspond to a physical or logical configuration of receiver resources, and signaling may be initiated by a mobile terminal or by a base station in communication with the mobile terminal.

Description

Inter-Frequency Measurement Control in a Multi-Carrier System {INTER-FREQUENCY MEASUREMENT CONTROL IN A MULTI-CARRIER SYSTEM}

35 Priority claim under U.S.C. §119

This patent application is provisional application 61 entitled "Inter-Frequency Measurement Control in a Multi-Carrier System," filed Nov. 8, 2010, which is assigned to the assignee herein and expressly incorporated herein by reference. Claim priority to / 411,365. This patent application is also a provisional application entitled “Inter-Frequency Measurement Control in a Multi-Carrier System” filed on December 15, 2010, which is assigned to the assignee herein and expressly incorporated herein by reference. Claim priority to 61 / 423,527.

Aspects of the present invention generally relate to wireless communications, and more particularly to methods and apparatuses for controlling inter-frequency measurements in wireless communications systems.

Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of volunteering communication with multiple users by sharing system resources (eg, bandwidth and transmit power).

In some wireless communication systems, the mobile terminal and base station communicate from the base station to the mobile terminal on the downlink and from the mobile terminal to the base station on the uplink. The mobile station can operate on different bands, but on only one active band at any time. As a result, the mobile terminal must suspend communication on the active band to measure channel quality of any other band within its operating capabilities.

Techniques for determining and signaling requirements for measurement gaps in a multi-carrier / multi-band wireless communication system are disclosed. In one aspect, the mobile terminal signals the capability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each of which includes one or more frequency bands, and for each CA configuration, the mobile terminal is supported by the mobile terminal. It provides an indication of measurement gap requirements when operating in the respective CA configuration for frequency bands.

In one aspect, the UE generates a capability message that includes an indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in one or more CA configurations and transmits a capability message to the serving base station.

In an aspect, the UE receives a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations, allocates receiver resources for operating on communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration, and selects the selected carrier aggregation Signal inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the configuration.

In one aspect, the UE receives a reconfiguration request for another carrier set configuration selected from the set and signals the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier set configuration selected from the subset.

In one aspect, the UE receives a frequency measurement request based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements and signals an "not followed" indication if the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal.

In an aspect, a base station configured for multi-carrier operation receives an indication from a mobile terminal of an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each of which includes one or more frequency bands, For example, the mobile terminal receives an indication of measurement gap requirements when operating in the respective CA configuration for the frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal.

Other aspects include apparatuses and articles of manufacture for performing the disclosed techniques.

1 illustrates an example wireless communication system.
2 is a block diagram of an exemplary wireless communication system.
3 illustrates an example receiver configuration with deterministic measurement gap requirements.
4 illustrates an example measurement gap matrix corresponding to the receiver configuration of FIG. 3.
5A illustrates an example multi-band, multi-receiver device in a first configuration.
FIG. 5B illustrates the example multi-band, multi-receiver device of FIG. 5A, in a second configuration.
6A illustrates another exemplary multi-band, multi-receiver device.
6B illustrates the example multi-band, multi-receiver device of FIG. 6A in a first configuration.
7 is an example table illustrating UE-determined measurement gap requirements.
8 is a flowchart illustrating an example signaling and update of measurement gap capabilities in a multi-carrier environment.
9 is a flowchart illustrating additional aspects of exemplary signaling and updating of measurement gap capabilities in a multi-carrier environment.
10 is a flowchart illustrating additional aspects of exemplary signaling and updating of measurement gap capabilities in a multi-carrier environment.
11A illustrates an example multi-band, multi-receiver device.
FIG. 11B is tables illustrating example UE measurement gap requirements for the multi-band, multi-receiver device of FIG. 11A.
11C illustrates an example measurement gap matrix.
11D illustrates another example measurement gap matrix.
12A is a flow diagram illustrating an example method in a mobile terminal.
12B is a flowchart illustrating another example method in an example terminal.
13A is a flow chart illustrating an example method at a base station.
13B is a flow chart illustrating an example method at a base station.
14 is a block diagram of an example system that can implement various disclosed methods.
15 is a communication device that can implement various disclosed methods.

In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, details and descriptions are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of various disclosed aspects. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the various disclosed aspects are illustrative and that other aspects may be implemented without departing from these details and descriptions.

As used herein, the terms “component”, “module”, “system” and the like are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, hardware, firmware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or running software. For example, a component may be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and / or a computer.

By way of illustration, both an application running on a computing device and the computing device can be a component. One or more components can reside within a process and / or thread of execution and a component can be localized on one computer and / or distributed between two or more computers. Additionally, these components may execute from various computer readable media having various data structures stored thereon. Components may include, for example, data from one or more data packets (eg, a local system, another component in a distributed system, and / or a signal from one component interacting with other systems via a network, such as the Internet, by way of a signal). May communicate by local and / or remote processes in accordance with a signal having < RTI ID = 0.0 >

In addition, certain aspects are described herein in connection with user equipment. The user equipment may also be called a user terminal and may be a system, subscriber unit, subscriber station, mobile station, mobile wireless terminal, mobile device, node, device, remote station, remote terminal, terminal, wireless communication device, wireless communication device or user. It may include some or all of the functionality of the agent. User equipment includes cellular telephones, cordless telephones, session initiation protocol (SIP) phones, smart phones, wireless local loop (WLL) stations, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptops, handheld communication devices, handheld computing devices, satellite radio , A wireless modem card and / or another processing device for communicating on the wireless system. Also, various aspects are described herein in connection with a base station. The base station can be used to communicate with one or more wireless terminals. Base stations may include some or all of the functionality of an access point, node, node B, evolved node B (eNB), or some other network entity, and in this regard, may generally be referred to as a “network”. A base station may also include some or all of the functionality of an access point, node, node B, evolved node B (eNB) or some other network entity, and in this regard, may generally be referred to as a “network”. have. The base station also communicates with the wireless terminals via an air-interface. Communication may occur through one or more sectors.

The base station may act as a router between the rest of the access network and the wireless terminal, which may comprise an Internet Protocol (IP) network, by converting the received air-interface frames into IP packets. The base station can also coordinate the management of attributes for the air interface and can also be a gateway between the wireless network and the wired network. It will be appreciated that network commands for a UE are communicated to the UE by one or more base stations whenever they originate from the network.

Various features and aspects of the present disclosure will be presented in terms of systems that may include a number of devices, components, modules, and the like. It should be understood that various systems may include additional devices, components, modules, etc., and / or may not include all devices, components, modules, etc. discussed in connection with the drawings. Combinations of these approaches can also be used.

In addition, in this description, the term “exemplary” is used to mean acting as an example, case or illustration. Any aspect or design described herein as "exemplary" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs. Rather, the use of the term exemplary is intended to present concepts in a specific manner.

The techniques described herein may be implemented in a multi-carrier wireless communication system. One exemplary wireless communication system may utilize Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM), which partitions the overall system bandwidth into multiple (N _F ) subcarriers, which may also be referred to as frequency sub-channels, tones or frequency bins. Can be. The data to be transmitted (ie, the information bits) is first encoded using a particular coding scheme to produce coded bits, and the coded bits are further grouped into multi-bit symbols which are then mapped to modulation symbols. Each modulation symbol corresponds to a point in the signal constellation defined by the particular modulation scheme (eg, M-PSK or M-QAM) used for the data transmission. In each time period, which may depend on the bandwidth of each frequency subcarrier, a modulation symbol may be sent on each of the N _F subcarriers. Thus, OFDM can be used to prevent inter-symbol interference (ISI) caused by frequency selective fading featuring different amounts of attenuation on the system bandwidth.

Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink, DL) may refer to a communication link from base stations to wireless terminals. The reverse link (or uplink, UL) may refer to a communication link from terminals to base stations. In a multi-carrier system, one or more component carriers (CCs) can be configured on the DL and UL for each wireless terminal. Such configurations may be symmetrical (where the wireless terminal has the same number of downlink and uplink component carriers) or asymmetrical (where the wireless terminal has a different number of downlink and uplink carriers). . The transmissions of the respective CCs, in turn, may be configured separately.

MIMO transmissions use multiple (N _T ) transmit antennas and multiple (N _R ) receive antennas. The MIMO channel formed by the N _T transmit antennas and the N _R receive antennas may also be broken down into N _S independent channels, referred to as spatial channels, where N _S ≤ min {N _T , N _R } . Each of the N _S independent channels corresponds to a dimension. MIMO transmission may provide improved performance (eg, higher throughput and / or greater reliability) when additional dimensions generated by multiple transmit and receive antennas are used. MIMO is also supported in time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD) systems. In a TDD system, forward and reverse link transmissions exist on the same frequency domain, and thus the reversible principle allows estimation of the forward link channel from the reverse link channel. This allows the base station to extract the transmit beamforming gain on the forward link when multiple antennas are available at the base station.

FIG. 1 illustrates a multi-carrier wireless communication system 100. Base station 102 may include a plurality of antenna groups, each group comprising one or more antennas. For example, if base station 102 includes six antennas, one antenna group may include a first antenna 104 and a second antenna 106, and another antenna group may include a third antenna ( 108 and the fourth antenna 110, while the third group may include the fifth antenna 112 and the sixth antenna 114. While each of the antenna groups noted above is identified as having two antennas, it should be noted that more or fewer antennas may be used in each antenna group.

The first user equipment 116, for example, enables the fifth antenna 112 and the sixth antenna 114 to enable the transmission of information for the first user equipment 116 via the first forward link 120. ). As shown, the exemplary first forward link 120 includes three component carriers (CCs), while the exemplary first reverse link 118 includes one component carrier. The number of component carriers in both forward link 120 and reverse link 118 may vary over time and is not limited by this example. For example, sometimes the base station 102 may configure and reconfigure a plurality of uplink and downlink CCs for the multi-carrier user equipment 116, 122 that it serves.

1 also shows, for example, transmission of information for the second user equipment 122 over the second forward link 126, and from the second user equipment 122 over the second reverse link 124. Illustrates second user equipment 122 in communication with third antenna 108 and fourth antenna 110 of base station 102 to enable reception of information. In a frequency division duplex (FDD) system, the component carriers 118, 120, 124, 126 shown in FIG. 1 may use different frequencies for communication. For example, the first forward link 120 may use a different frequency than that used by the first reverse link 118.

Each group of antennas and / or the area in which they are designed to communicate may be referred to as a sector of base station 102. For example, the antenna groups shown in FIG. 1 may be designed to communicate with user equipment 116, 122 in different sectors of base station 102. On forward links 120 and 126, the transmit antennas of base station 102 may use beamforming to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the forward links for different user equipment 116 and 122. The use of beamforming to transmit to user equipment distributed over the coverage area can reduce the amount of interference to the user equipment in neighboring cells.

Exemplary multi-carrier communication system 100 may include logical channels classified into control channels and traffic channels. Logical control channels include a broadcast control channel (BCCH), which is a downlink channel for broadcasting system control information, a paging control channel (PCCH), which is a downlink channel that carries paging information, and one or several multicast traffic channels (MTCH). Multicast control channel (MCCH), which is a point-to-multipoint downlink channel used to transmit control information and multimedia broadcast and multicast service (MBMS) scheduling. In general, after a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection, the MCCH is only used by user equipments that receive MBMS. Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH) is another logical control channel that is a point-to-point bidirectional channel that transmits dedicated control information, such as user-specific control information used by user equipment having an RRC connection. The common control channel (CCCH) is also a logical control channel that can be used for random access information. Logical traffic channels may include a dedicated traffic channel (DTCH), which is a point-to-point bidirectional channel dedicated to one user equipment for the transmission of user information. In addition, a multicast traffic channel (MTCH) can be used for point-to-multipoint downlink transmission of traffic data.

In addition, various logical transport channels in a communication system may be classified into downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). The DL transport channels may include a broadcast channel (BCH), a downlink shared data channel (DL-SDCH), a multicast channel (MCH), and a paging channel (PCH). The UL transport channels may include a random access channel (RACH), a request channel (REQCH), an uplink shared data channel (UL-SDCH), and a plurality of physical channels. Physical channels may also include a set of downlink and uplink channels.

The downlink physical channels are common pilot channel (CPICH), synchronization channel (SCH), common control channel (CCCH), shared downlink control channel (SDCCH), multicast control channel (MCCH), shared uplink allocation channel (SUACH) Acknowledgment channel (ACKCH), downlink physical shared data channel (DL-PSDCH), uplink power control channel (UPCCH), paging indicator channel (PICH), load indicator channel (LICH), physical broadcast channel ( PBCH), physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH), physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel (PHICH), physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) and physical multicast channel (PMCH) It may include one. Uplink physical channels are physical random access channel (PRACH), channel quality indicator channel (CQICH), acknowledgment channel (ACKCH), antenna subset indicator channel (ASICH), shared request channel (SREQCH), uplink physical sharing It may include at least one of a data channel (UL-PSDCH), a broadband pilot channel (BPICH), a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), and a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

In addition, the following terms and features may be used in describing the various disclosed aspects:

3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project

AMC Adaptive Modulation and Coding

BTS Base Station Transceiver

CC component carrier

CSI Channel Status Information

CQI channel quality indicator

DCI Downlink Control Information

DFT-S-OFDM Discrete Fourier Transform Spread OFDM

DL downlink (base station to subscriber transmission)

E-UTRAN Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network

eNB Evolved Node B

FDD frequency division duplex

LTE Long Term Evolution

MIMO Multi-Input-Multi-Output

OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access

PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel

PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel

PMI Precoding Matrix Indicator

PCC Primary Component Carrier

PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel

PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel

RI rank indicator

SCC Secondary Component Carrier

SIMO Single-Input-Multi-Output

UL Uplink

2 is a block diagram illustrating additional aspects of an example multi-carrier wireless communication system 200 that may be as described in FIG. 1. As shown, system 200 includes base station 210 (also referred to as a "transmitter system", "access point" or "eNodeB") and user equipment 250 (also "UE", "receiver system). Or “referred to as an“ access terminal ”). As illustrated, while base station 210 is referred to as a transmitter system and user equipment 250 is referred to as a receiver system, it will be appreciated that these systems can communicate in both directions. Thus, the terms "transmitter system" and "receiver system" are not limited to unidirectional communications from either system. It should also be noted that base station 210 and user equipment 250 of FIG. 2 may each communicate with a plurality of other receiver and transmitter systems.

At base station 210, traffic data for multiple data streams is provided from data source 212 to transmit (TX) data processor 214. Each data stream may be sent through a separate transmitter system. TX data processor 214 formats, codes, and interleaves the traffic data for each data stream based on a particular coding scheme selected for that data stream to provide coded data. The coded data for each data stream may be multiplexed using pilot data using, for example, OFDM techniques. The pilot data is a known data pattern that is typically processed in a known manner and can be used in the receiver system to estimate the channel response. The multiplexed pilot and coded data for each data stream is then subjected to a particular modulation scheme (e.g., BPSK, QSPK, M-PSK or M-QAM) selected for that data stream to provide modulation symbols. Modulated (symbol mapped). The data rate, coding, and modulation for each data stream may be determined by the instructions performed by the processor 230 of the base station 210.

In this example, modulation symbols for all data streams may be provided to the TX MIMO processor 220, which may perform further processing (eg, for OFDM). TX MIMO processor 220 may provide N _T modulation symbol streams to N _T since the transceiver system transmitters (TMTR) (222a to 222t). TX MIMO processor 220 may further apply beamforming weights to antenna 224 transmitting the symbol and to the symbols of the data streams.

The transceivers 222a-222t at the base station 210 receive and process a separate symbol stream to provide one or more analog signals, and further condition the analog signals to provide a modulated signal suitable for transmission. In some systems, conditioning may include, but is not limited to, operations such as amplification, filtering, upconversion, and the like. The modulated signals generated by the transceivers 222a through 222t are then transmitted from the antennas 224a through 224t of the base station 210 as shown in FIG. 2.

At user equipment 250, the transmitted modulated signals may be received by antennas 252a through 252r, and the signal received from each of the receiver system antennas 252a through 252r may be a separate transceiver (RCVR) 254a through 254r. Is provided). Each transceiver 254a through 254r at the user equipment 250 conditions an individual received signal, digitizes the conditioned signal to provide samples, and adds samples to provide a corresponding "received" symbol stream. Can be processed. Conditioning may include, but is not limited to, operations such as amplification, filtering, downconversion, and the like.

RX data processor 260 receives and processes symbol streams from transceivers 254a through 254r based on a particular receiver processing technique to provide a plurality of "detected" symbol streams. In one example, each detected symbol stream may include symbols that are estimates of the symbols sent for the corresponding data stream. RX data processor 260 may demodulate, deinterleave, and decode each detected symbol stream to recover traffic data for the corresponding data stream. Processing by the RX data processor 260 may be complementary to that performed by the TX data processor 214 and the TX MIMO processor 220 at the base station 210. The RX data processor 260 can additionally provide processed symbol streams to the data sink 264.

The channel response estimate is generated by the RX data processor 260 and performs spatial / temporal processing at the receiver system, adjusts power levels, changes modulation rates or schemes, and / or performs other suitable operations. Can be used for In addition, the RX data processor 260 can further estimate channel characteristics such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) of the detected symbol streams. The RX data processor 260 may then provide the estimated channel characteristics to the processor 270. In one example, the RX data processor 260 and processor 270 of the user equipment may further derive channel state information (CSI), which may include information regarding the received data stream and / or communication link.

The CSI may include different types of information regarding channel conditions, for example. For example, CSI may be used by base station 210 to determine rank indicator (RI) and / or precoding matrix index (PMI) for determining MIMO parameters, and / or data rates and modulation and coding schemes. It may include wideband or sub-band channel quality information (CQI) for each CC configured. Processor 270 may generate CSI reports including PMI, CQI, and / or RI for one or more of the carriers configured for use by user equipment 250.

In particular, the CQI (also referred to as a "channel quality indicator") takes into account the characteristics of the receiver of the UE and the signal-to-interference plus noise ratio (SINR), which can be supported by each of the configured component carriers. May be used by base station 210 to determine. In user equipment 250, the CQI generated by processor 270 is processed by TX data processor 238, modulated by modulator 280, and conditioned by receiver system transceivers 254a through 254r. , Is sent back to the base station 210. In addition, data source 236 at user equipment 250 may provide additional data to be processed by TX data processor 238.

User equipment 250 may receive and process spatially multiplexed signals. Spatial multiplexing may be performed at base station 210 by multiplexing and transmitting different data streams on transmitter system antennas 224a through 224t. This is in contrast to the use of transmit diversity schemes in which the same data stream is transmitted from multiple transmitter system antennas 224a through 224t. In a MIMO communication system that receives and processes spatially multiplexed signals, the precoding matrix is typically at the base station 210 to ensure that signals transmitted from each of the transmitter system antennas 224a through 224t are sufficiently uncorrelated from each other. Used. This decorrelation can be received with a composite signal arriving at any particular receiver system antennas 252a through 252r, with the presence of signals for which individual data streams carry other data streams from other transmitter system antennas 224a through 224t. Ensure that it can be determined at the time.

Since the amount of cross-correlation between streams can be affected by the environment, it is advantageous for user equipment 250 to feed back information to base station 210 for the received signals. For example, both base station 210 and user equipment 250 may include a codebook with multiple precoding matrices. Each of these precoding matrices may in some cases be related to the amount of cross-correlation experienced in the received signal. Since it is advantageous to transmit the index of a particular matrix rather than the values in the matrix, the user equipment 250 may send a CSI report with PMI information to the base station 210. A rank indicator (RI) may also be sent that indicates to the base station 210 how many independent data streams to use in spatial multiplexing.

The communication system 200 may also use transmit diversity schemes instead of the spatially multiplexed scheme described above. In these examples, the same data stream is transmitted via transmitter system antennas 224a through 224t. The data rate delivered to the user equipment 250 is typically lower than the spatially multiplexed MIMO communication systems 200. Transmit diversity schemes can provide robustness and reliability of a communication channel. Each of the signals transmitted from the transmitter system antennas 224a through 224t will experience a different interference environment (eg, fading, reflection, multi-path phase shifts). Different signal characteristics received at receiver system antennas 252a through 254r may be useful in determining the appropriate data stream.

Other examples may use a combination of spatial multiplexing and transmit diversity. For example, in a system with four antennas 224, the first data stream may be transmitted on two of the antennas, and the second data stream may be transmitted on the remaining two antennas. In these example systems, the rank indicator may be set to an integer lower than the overall rank of the precode matrix to indicate to base station 210 to use a combination of spatial multiplexing and transmit diversity.

User equipment 250 may also receive and process signals on a plurality of frequency diverse carriers in carrier aggregation mode, where one or more of transceivers 254a through 254r operate between two or more frequency bands. You can change the frequency of.

At base station 210, modulated signals from user equipment 250 are received by transmitter system antennas 224, conditioned by transceivers 222, demodulated by demodulator 240, and user equipment. It is processed by the RX data processor 242 to extract the reverse link message sent by 250. Processor 230 at base station 210 may then determine which precoding matrix to use for future forward link transmissions. Processor 230 may also use the received signal to adjust beamforming weights for future forward link transmissions.

Processor 230 at base station 210 and processor 270 at user equipment 250 may direct operations in their respective system. Additionally, memory 232 at base station 210 and memory 272 at user equipment 250 may be used for program codes and data used by transmitter system processor 230 and receiver system processor 270, respectively. Can provide storage In addition, at the user equipment 250, various processing techniques may be used to process the N _R received signals to detect the N _T transmitted symbol streams. These receiver processing techniques may include spatial and space-time receiver processing techniques, which are equalization techniques, "continuous nulling / equalization and interference cancellation" receiver processing techniques, and / or "continuous interference cancellation" or "continuous cancellation". "Receiver processing techniques. Continuing reference of the UE, eNB, and network will be understood as applicable to the corresponding entities of FIGS. 1 and 2 throughout the present disclosure.

Multi-carrier user equipment, such as UE 250, can be configured with one or more receivers that can tune to one or more frequency bands. Depending on the specific configuration of the receivers, the UE may need to tune away from the frequency band of its current serving cell to measure another frequency band from the serving cell or from a neighbor cell. Such measurements may be required, for example, to assess the quality of the carrier channel before establishing a connection on the carrier. The measurements may include, for example, a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement and a carrier received signal strength indication (RSSI), and radio resources to facilitate and optimize in-cell band switching and inter-cell handoff decisions. Can be used as part of the management approach. The time period during which the UE is tuned away from its serving cell is referred to as a "measurement gap".

For a given UE receiver architecture and a given serving band, the UE may or may not require measurement gaps for the targeted measurement band. The requirement for the measurement gap is that, for example, two bands (serving and measurement) may be tuned by the same receiver in the UE or in the UE under the constraint that each receiver in the UE can only be tuned to one band at a time. It may depend on whether it is supported by different receivers.

3 illustrates an example case for a UE 300 having two receivers, Receiver 1 and Receiver 2, where Receiver 1 is a multi-band receiver that can be tuned to band X or band Y, and receiver 2 Is a one-band receiver tuneable only to band Z. In this example, when receiver 300 is served in band X, receiver 1 will require a measurement gap to tune from band X to band Y to measure band Y (and vice versa). On the other hand, when the UE 300 is served in band X or band Y, the UE 300 can measure band Z without interrupting service on band X or band Y, so no measurement gap is required. .

These relationships may be indicated by a matrix of flags included in the UE's network registered capabilities (eg, in field “interFreqNeedForGaps”), a flag being provided for each pair of supported bands. The matrix corresponding to FIG. 3 is illustrated in FIG. 4, where 1 indicates that a measurement gap is required and 0 indicates that no measurement gap is required.

This level of signaling can capture the needs of measurement gaps when the bands supported at each receiver are separated. This level of signaling is also suitable in a carrier aggregation environment, as proposed for LTE Advanced, where each carrier is supported by a single receiver. However, for UEs with multiple receivers in common that can tune to at least one band (eg, one receiver supports bands A, B, C, while the second receiver supports bands C, D). , E) can be modified to capture the demand for measurement gaps with greater accuracy. As an example, consider a UE 500 having two receivers as illustrated in FIGS. 5A and 5B, where receiver 1 supports bands A, B and C, and receiver 2 supports bands C, D And E, and band C is active (ie, band C is the serving cell band).

In FIG. 5A, UE 500 is configured with band C using receiver 1. UE 500 can measure bands D and E without measurement gaps using receiver 2, but requires measurement gaps to measure bands A and B. In FIG. 5B, the situation is reversed. By using receiver 2 for active band C, UE 500 can measure bands A and B without the need for measurement gaps, but requires measurement gaps for measurement of bands D and E. This simple example shows the case in which the scheme of FIG. 4 may not be suitable since it does not take into account the presence of a common band (eg, band C) on two or more receivers.

In general, for dual receivers, ambiguity may result when the serving band is supported by multiple receivers and the measurement band is supported by only one receiver. In a single carrier system such as LTE Rel-8, the UE can signal that gaps are always required and can accommodate the cost increase in user throughput coming from allocating gaps even when gaps are not required. Alternatively, if the UE can dynamically reallocate the serving band from one receiver to another, the UE may signal that gaps are never required. However, as described herein, the UE may need to signal measurement gap requirements for different combinations of bands (more than two) in a multi-carrier environment.

For example, the UE may indicate its supported bands in the list of groups, each group having the feature that bands in the same group require gaps for measurement while bands in different groups do not. A symmetric relationship can be assumed where UEs operating on band X require a gap to measure band Y, while, if necessary, operating on band Y also requires a gap to measure band X. do. In general, these “groups” correspond to separate receivers, but can also represent logical groups based on the specific capabilities of the UE. For example, the architecture of a particular UE may indicate that certain pairs of bands require gaps even if they reside on different receivers. However, another UE implementation may be implemented within a single receiver without the need for gaps (eg, by dynamically switching the active band from one receiver to another, as described in more detail below and below). Certain inter-band measurements can be performed.

Referring again to FIGS. 5A and 5B, for example, the UE may signal band support as two groups, so-called {A, B, C} and {C, D, E}, where the signaling format May be any of a variety of known methods for representing lists of data values.

If the signaled groups are separated (ie there are no common bands, which is not the case of FIGS. 5A and 5B), the signaling may be equivalent to the format described above, and a value of 1 (“true”, gaps make the measurement Is signaled for pairs of bands in the same group, and 0 (“false”, indicating no gaps are required) is signaled for pairs of bands in different groups. However, when groups overlap, as in the example of FIGS. 5A and 5B, the need for gaps is assigned which of the two receivers is to a common band (eg, band C in the example of FIGS. 5A and 5B). Can be changed based on whether

The following is a description of an example method for determining whether measurement gaps are required when a UE with a particular configuration of active carriers performs measurements on additional carriers in different bands.

Case 1: If no measurement band occurs in any group containing at least one active carrier, no gap is required.

Case 2: If gaps are separated and the measurement band occurs in a group containing active carriers, a gap is required.

If neither Case 1 nor Case 2 applies, the measured bands share a group with at least one active carrier, and additional information may be required to determine whether a measurement gap is required. Referring back to the example of FIGS. 5A and 5B, when band A is active and band C is measured, gaps are required only if receiver 2 has an active band (eg, when band D or E is active). .

In a multi-carrier system, the operating bands of the UE can be configured dynamically or semi-statically (eg, by RRC signaling) so that a particular band is active for one time period and inactive for another time period. May be deactivated. In accordance with the present disclosure, a UE can dynamically update its indicated measurement capabilities as its configuration changes. In this way, the indicated band support reflects its capabilities as a function of its current configuration rather than a static set of characteristics of the UE. As an example, consider a UE 600 having three receivers with different sets of supported bands, as shown in FIG. 6A, wherein receiver 1 supports bands A, B and C; Receiver 2 supports bands C, D and E; Receiver 3 supports bands A, D and F.

For example, assume that the UE 600 is configured to operate on bands B and D. Band B occupies receiver 1; Band D may be allocated by the UE to receiver 2 or receiver 3. The UE 600 may select an assigned receiver based on certain criteria, such as a set of bands known to be used within the service area. For example, if the UE 600 receives a message from the base station that the network uses band F in the service area, it can measure band F without measurement gaps (and / or to be in active mode on band F later). Band D can be allocated to receiver 2 to leave receiver 3 free. In this case, the configuration of the UE 600 may have band B active on receiver 1 and band D active on receiver 2, as shown in FIG. 6B.

In the configuration of FIG. 6B, the UE 600 can measure bands A and F without gaps using receiver 3, but can measure bands C and E (on receiver 2 only) on gaps A (on receiver 1 or receiver 2). Requires gaps to measure. The UE may signal this information to the network via the serving cell as a single list of flags for the supported bands, where each flag indicates whether measurement gaps are required in the current configuration, and the serving cell is already Note that reporting on these active bands may be omitted since it is communicating with UE 600 on active bands. 7 is a table 700 illustrating information that a UE can signal for this example. Table 700 includes one entry for each unique band supported by UE 600, whether a measurement gap is required (bands C and E), is not required (bands A and F), or Indicates whether the band is omitted since it is active (bands B and D).

This information may be updated when the set of active carriers changes, or when the UE 600 reallocates initial resources (eg, by transferring operation on band D from receiver 2 to receiver 3). . 8 is a high-level flow diagram 800 illustrating an example method for signaling and updating measurement gap capabilities in establishing a radio resource control (RRC) connection between a UE and an eNodeB (eNB).

In operation 802, an RRC connection is established. In operation 804, the UE signals its capabilities to the eNodeB including its measurement gap requirements for its current configuration. At operation 806, the eNodeB reconfigures the UE for a multi-carrier configuration (eg, as illustrated in FIG. 6B). And, in operation 808, the UE updates its measurement gap requirements based on the multi-carrier configuration. Operations 806 and 808 may then be repeated whenever the carrier configuration of the UE is reconfigured by the eNodeB.

Updates to the measurement gap requirements of the UE can be signaled by repeating signaling of UE capability in a single-carrier system (eg, using the "InterFreqNeedForGaps" field defined for LTE Rel-8), and the eNodeB May be triggered by reconfiguration commands from the network sent to the UE. Alternatively, the new signaling mode can be provided as an extension to existing reconfiguration messages. For example, measurement gap requirements of the UE may be signaled in a "RRCConnectionReconfigurationComplete" message that terminates the reconfiguration procedure in the existing LTE Rel-8 RRC protocol.

As noted above, the measurement gap requirements of the UE may be changed without a reconfiguration command from the eNodeB (eg, due to internal UE determination to reassign the reception of a particular band for different receivers). Thus, operation 808 of the method 800 may be independently triggered by the UE. The UE may use, for example, an extension or new message to the existing "UECapabilitylnformation" message defined in LTE Rel-8.

One aspect of this approach is that this may support the "legacy" mechanism of LTE Rel-8 when the UE is not in carrier aggregation configuration and thereby delivery of new information is complementary to this basic configuration. In particular, the modified "band group" signaling described above can be avoided in single-carrier / legacy mode operation. Rather than signaling a list of band groups that reflect the structure of the UE's receiver implementation, the UE provides a dynamically updated statement of its current capability.

When the network receives the "group" signaling described above without further conveying the information, it may make a "pessimistic" assumption for the needs for gaps or an "optimistic" assumption for the needs for gaps. The "pessimistic" view is that the network assumes that a gap is required if a measurement gap can be required. In particular, if the band to be measured appears in any signaled group with any active band, the measurement-gap will be allocated by the network.

Referring back to the UE 600 illustrated in FIG. 6B, the UE 600 first enters a connected mode on band B, and then a carrier aggregation (dual-carrier) configuration with both active bands B and D. Assume If an RRC connection is established, the UE 600 may reflect its band support groups (which reflect the band capability of the three receivers) and the network may determine the duration of the connection to infer when gaps will be required. This information is available through: For example, immediately after the connection is established, the network may assume that group 1 is "occupied" by the assignment of carriers in band B, and the band is supported by another receiver (e.g., receiver 3 in FIG. 6B). Although measurements in any other band (ie bands A and C) within the receiver 1 group will require a gap, measurements in other supported groups D, E and F will not require a measurement gap. Can be assumed.

If a second carrier is added (in band D), under a pessimistic assumption, the network will consider group 1 to be occupied by band B, group 2 to be occupied by band D, and group 3 to be occupied by band D. This follows that all intermediate frequency measurements will be assumed to require gaps since it is assumed that all groups will be occupied. This assumption is more pessimistic than it is clearly needed. If the network knows that band D has been assigned to group (receiver) 2, it can be inferred that bands A and F will be measurable without gaps, but in the absence of this information, this means that band D assignment is on group 2 or group 3 It can be assumed that it can interfere with gapless measurements.

A corresponding flow diagram 900 is illustrated in FIG. 9. In operation 902, a connection is established on band B between the UE and the eNodeB. In operation 904, the UE signals its group configurations to the network via the eNodeB, where the network has bands of measurement gaps (even if band A is available in group 3 and band C is available in group 2). Suppose it is required for A and C. At operation 906, the eNodeB sends a reconfiguration command from the network to reconfigure the UE to add band D, and the network may be associated with group 1 and group 3 because band D may be active in group 2 or group 3. In addition, assume that it is occupied. This pessimistic approach is more conservative than necessary. For example, if all receivers in the UE are the same (i.e., support the same bands), this approach assumes that any single band occupies all the same groups, so that in all cases all inter-frequency measurements are taken. Gaps may be allocated for each.

Alternatively, the network can assume that the UE can perform intelligent reallocation of resources to perform measurements without gaps whenever possible. Referring back to the example of FIG. 6B, if receiver 1 is assigned to band B and receiver 2 is assigned to band D, the UE can measure without gaps on bands A and F (using receiver 3), Measurements on band C require a gap. However, if the UE needs to measure band C, it can reallocate band D to receiver 3, thus freeing receiver 2 to perform the measurements without requiring a gap.

If the network assumes such intelligent operations on a portion of the UE (or if the UE signals its capability to the network), it can safely configure the UE to measure band C without configuring and activating measurement gaps. .

A corresponding flow diagram 1000 for this “optimistic” assumption is illustrated in FIG. 10. In operation 1002, the network establishes a connection between the eNobeB and the UE on band B. In operation 1004, the UE signals its group configuration to the network via eNobeB, knowing that only Group 2 is occupied because the network is the only group that supports Group B. In operation 1006, the eNodeB sends a reconfiguration command from the network to reconfigure the UE to activate band D, and the network may dynamically allocate band D to group 2 or group 3, and thus the band Assume that no measurement gaps are required for the measurements of A, C, E or F. In practice, the network applies the following rule: If there is a one-to-one mapping of active bands to the indicated group, therefore, no gap is required if the band to be measured is included in at least one unassigned group. Do not.

Table 1 below illustrates an example mapping of bands to the UE configuration illustrated in FIG. 6, and how a UE capable of dynamically reallocating bands to different receivers can allow measurements without gaps on all bands. Shows if there is

Measured band Required mapping A B: group 1, D: group 2
Measure: group 3 C B: group 1, D: group 3
Measure: group 2 E B: group 1, D: group 2
Measure: group 3 F B: group 1, D: group 2
Measure: group 3

This approach may be supported if both the UE and the network have the ability to determine whether such a mapping exists. If there is capability, the network will not form a measurement gap and the UE will perform dynamic reallocation of resources to avoid misalignment with the network (in the example described, between the receivers 2 and 3, if necessary, Shifts band D).

The base station (eg, base station 210) and the UE (eg, user equipment 250) may share a set of standard carrier set (CA) configurations. Using a set of CA configurations, the UE can report its capability to support different measurement scenarios. For example, in a wireless communication system that supports up to five aggregated carriers, the UE may use bands A, B, C, D, and E, each carrier having a 20 MHz bandwidth, as shown in Table 2 below. A table or other data structure may be provided that includes a plurality of flags that define four predetermined CA configurations that include two, three, four, and five carriers. Many different configurations can be defined, and it will be understood that the embodiments disclosed herein are not limited to the examples provided.

Configuration Band A Band B Band C Band D Band E One 20 MHz 20 MHz 2 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 3 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 4 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz

If a UE can only support configurations 1 and 2, for example, it can use a 4-bit flag to identify supported configurations such as {1, 1, 0, 0} (eg, The capability may be signaled (using a "UECapabilityInformation" message). Such signaling may, for example, convey that a UE has at least three receivers, each receiver supporting at least a different one of each of carriers A, B and C. However, this signaling will not provide any additional information regarding the number of bands supported by each receiver or the receivers in the UE. In particular, it will not convey information regarding UE-specific gap requirements when performing the requested band measurements.

For example, if the network configures the UE in configuration 1 (bands A and B) and then requests measurement of band D, the network may configure-dependent signaling (e.g., in the UE capability "InterFreqNeedForGaps" message). As illustrated at 8). If the UE reports that it can measure band D without gaps while active on band A, and can measure band D without gaps while active on band B, the network reports that band D is in bands A or B And must be on different receivers, and can determine that no gap is required to measure band D based on the assumptions about the physical architecture of the UE. However, assumptions can be wrong or unnecessarily limited. For example, band D may be supported on two receivers in the UE, where band D may be measured without gaps only while one of the two receivers is in use. In order to resolve the ambiguity of the signaled capabilities of the UE, additional signaling may be used beyond the simple configuration capability list.

Referring now to FIG. 11A, the UE 1100, the receiver 1 (RX1) supports bands A, B, and C; Receiver 2 (RX2) supports bands B, D, and E; Receiver 3 (RX3) supports bands C, D, and E; It is assumed in this example that receiver 4 (RX4) has a configuration that supports band F. For previously defined CA configurations, an exemplary UE enables configuration 1 using RX1 for band A and RX2 for band B. This also enables configuration 2 by adding band C on RX 3. However, the exemplary UE cannot support configuration 3 because it cannot add band D without dropping band B or band C. The UE also cannot support configuration 4 because it cannot add band E without dropping band C or band D.

The UE of FIG. 11A may signal the CA capability as described above using four flag bits corresponding to configurations 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. In this example, the flag bits will be {1, 1, 0, 0} as before. The UE may also signal a request for measurement gaps corresponding to each of the configurations it can support, as illustrated in FIG. 11B, including bands that are not present in the supported CA configurations. In configuration 1, the UE can measure bands C, D, E and F without gaps because the bands reside on independent unused receivers RX3 and RX4. In configuration 2, the UE can measure band F without a gap since the band resides on unused receiver RX4. This requires gaps to measure bands D and E since bands D and E share active band B and receiver RX2 and share active band C and receiver RX3. Bands B and C cannot be switched to RX1 since only Active band A case resides on RX1.

In this example, the UE signals the InterFreqNeedForGaps matrix for individual band-to-band measurement gaps independent of the CA configuration and the set of gap requirements corresponding to each of the CA configurations in its capabilities. For example, the UE may signal gap requirements for each supported CA configuration in response to a reconfiguration command or as part of an initial capability exchange with the network.

FIG. 11C illustrates an example matrix of the UE 1100 of FIG. 11A. As shown, all pair-wise entries are zero (no gap is required) for this UE because no pair of bands is limited for a single receiver.

It is also possible to define the current InterFreqNeedForGaps matrix for other CA configurations within the UE's capabilities each time the UE is reconfigured. These matrices may be registered with the network as part of the reported capabilities of the UE or on the fly when the UE is reconfigured. For example, if the network requests a configuration in which bands B, C, and F are active, the UE can comply by configuring itself in several different ways, and its measurement gap requirement based on the configuration of its choice And capabilities for making dynamic changes in their band-to-receiver assignment. For example, the UE chooses to assign band B to RX1, band C to RX3 and band F (if necessary) to RX4, and assume that the assignments are static. The corresponding matrix is illustrated in FIG. 11D. It will be appreciated that the UE may select a different configuration to support the combination of bands B, C and F. For example, this may assign band B to RX2 instead of RX1. In such a case, it will be appreciated that the UE will signal a different measurement gap matrix. In addition, this will signal a different matrix if dynamic allocation of bands for the receivers is possible.

The signaling provided by the UE may depend on the physical and logical architecture of the UE, and its inherent capabilities (eg, dynamic switching). This also applies to predefined CA configurations within the capability of the UE.

However, since the signaling strategy depends at least in part on the capabilities of the UE, the network may request an impossible configuration for the UE. Thus, the UE has a response indicating that the configuration cannot be achieved and that measurement gaps are required for the specified configuration, or that the requested measurements cannot be performed at all, and the network reconfiguration or measurement request (eg, "MeasurementConfig").

12A is a flow diagram illustrating an example method 1200a in a mobile terminal, such as UE 250. The method begins at operation 1202, where the UE signals the capability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each of which includes one or more frequency bands. At operation 1204, the UE may provide an indication of its measurement gap requirements when operating in each of the CA configurations. Measurement gap requirements may include a subset or all of the frequency bands supported by the UE. In one example, in a given CA configuration, a UE may report measurement gap requirements related to all its supported frequency bands, or only to frequency bands outside of the CA configuration. In operation 1206, the UE generates a capability message that includes an indication of the capability and measurement gap requirements for operating in one or more CA configurations. In operation 1208, the UE sends a capability message to the serving base station.

12B is a flow chart illustrating an example method 1200B at a mobile terminal, such as UE 250. The method begins at operation 1212, where the mobile terminal signals an ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations.

In operation 1214, the mobile terminal signals the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements corresponding to the set. In operation 1216, the mobile terminal receives an aggregation command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set. In operation 1218, the mobile terminal allocates receiver resources for operating on communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration. And at operation 1220, the mobile terminal signals the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration.

13A is a flow diagram illustrating an example method 1300A at a base station, such as an eNodeB 210. The method begins at operation 1302, wherein the base station receives an indication from the mobile terminal of an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each of which includes one or more frequency bands. At operation 1304, for each CA configuration, the base station receives an indication of measurement gap requirements when the mobile terminal operates in each CA configuration. The measurement gap requirements may be for some or all of the frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal. In operation 1306, the base station receives a capability message from the mobile terminal that includes an indication of the measurement gap requirements and the ability to operate in one or more CA configurations. In operation 1308, the mobile station sends a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations. In operation 1310, the base station receives a signal indicating inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the allocation of receiver resources at the mobile terminal corresponding to the communication bands associated with the carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration.

13B is a flow diagram illustrating an example method 1300B at a base station, such as eNB 210. The method begins at operation 1312, where the base station receives an indication from the mobile terminal of an ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations. In operation 1314, the base station receives an indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal corresponding to the set. In operation 1316, the base station sends a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set. And at operation 1318, the base station receives an indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration.

14 illustrates an example system 1400 that can support the various methods and operations described above. System 1400 includes a base station (eNodeB) 1402 that can transmit and / or receive information, signals, data, instructions, commands, bits, symbols, and the like. Base station 1402 may use transceiver 1406 to communicate with user equipment (UE) 1404 via at least an uplink carrier 1430 and a plurality of aggregated downlink carriers 1420 via a wireless communication network. have. The UE 1404 may use the transceiver 1414 to send and / or receive information, signals, data, commands, commands, bits, symbols, and the like. Also, although not shown, any number of base stations similar to the base station 1402 can be included in the system 1400, and / or any number of UEs similar to the UE 1404 can be included in the system 1400. The point is taken into account.

The transceiver 1414 in the UE 1404 is a UE's requirement for measurement gaps based on its architecture and / or messages signaling the ability to operate on a subset of a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations. May be configured to transmit messages to the base station 1402 including the messages signaling them. The transceiver 1414 may also be configured to receive configuration commands from the base station 1402 to reconfigure radio resources of the UE 1404 for the selected carrier aggregation configuration. The UE 1404 may also include a signaling component 1418 configured to generate signaling messages that indicate compatible carrier aggregation configurations and measurement gap requirements corresponding to the carrier aggregation configurations. The UE 1404 may also include a reconfiguration component 1416 that allocates radio resources of the UE 1404 in response to reconfiguration commands received from the base station 1402.

The transceiver 1406 in the base station 1402 may determine the UE's ability to measure gaps based on the architecture of its radio resources and / or messages signaling capabilities for operating on a subset of a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations. It may be configured to receive messages from the UE 1404 including messages indicative of requirements. The transceiver 1406 may also be configured to send configuration commands to the UE 1404 for reconfiguring radio resources of the UE 1404 for the selected carrier set configuration. Base station 1402 can also include a decision component 1410 configured to select a carrier aggregation configuration for the UE 1404 based on the signaled capabilities of the UE 1404. Base station 1402 can also include a configuration component for generating configuration commands to be sent to UE 1404.

15 illustrates an apparatus 1500 in which various disclosed embodiments may be implemented. In particular, the apparatus 1500 shown in FIG. 15 may comprise at least a portion of a base station or at least a portion of a user component (eg, base station 1402 and user equipment 1404 shown in FIG. 14) and / or a transmitter system or receiver. At least a portion of the system (eg, transmitter system 210 and receiver system 250 shown in FIG. 2). The apparatus 1500 shown in FIG. 15 may reside within a wireless network and may include, for example, one or more receivers and / or suitable receiving and decoding circuitry (eg, antennas, transceivers, demodulators, etc.). Incoming data can be received via the The apparatus 1500 shown in FIG. 15 may also transmit outgoing data, for example, via one or more transmitters and / or appropriate encoding and transmission circuitry (eg, antennas, transceivers, modulators, etc.). Can be. Additionally or alternatively, the device 1500 shown in FIG. 15 may reside within a wired network.

15 further illustrates that the apparatus 1500 may include a memory 1502 that may retain instructions for performing one or more operations, such as signal conditioning, analysis, and the like. Additionally, the apparatus 1500 of FIG. 15 may include a processor 1504 capable of executing instructions stored in the memory 1502 and / or instructions received from another device. The instructions may relate to configuring or operating the apparatus 1500 or related communications device, for example. Although the memory shown in FIG. 15 is shown as a single block, it should be noted that this may include two or more separate memories that constitute separate physical and / or logical units. Additionally, the memory may reside in whole or in part outside of the device 1500 shown in FIG. 15 while being in communication with the processor 1504. In addition, one or more components, such as configuration component 1408, configuration component 1416, decision component 1410, and signaling component 1418 shown in FIG. 14, may exist within a memory, such as memory 1502. It must be understood.

It will be appreciated that the memories described in connection with the disclosed embodiments may be volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or may include both volatile and nonvolatile memory. By way of example, and not limitation, non-volatile memory may include read only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), electrically programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM), or flash memory. Volatile memory can include random access memory (RAM), which acts as external cache memory. By way of example, and not limitation, RAM has many forms, such as synchronous RAM (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), synclink Available in DRAM (SLDRAM) and Direct Rambus RAM (DRRAM).

In addition, the device 1500 of FIG. 15 may be used with a user equipment or mobile device, for example, a module such as an SD card, a network card, a wireless network card, a computer (laptops, desktops, personal digital information). It may be noted that the device may be a terminal (including PDAs), mobile phones, smartphones or any other suitable terminal that may be used to access the network. The user equipment accesses the network by an access component (not shown). In one example, the connection between the user equipment and the access components can be wireless in nature, where the access component can be a base station and the user equipment is a wireless terminal. For example, the terminals and base stations may include time division multiple access (TDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM), flash OFDM, orthogonal frequency division multiple access ( Communication by any suitable wireless protocol, including but not limited to OFDMA) or any other suitable protocol.

The access components may be an access node associated with a wired network or a wireless network. For this purpose, the access component can be, for example, a router, a switch, or the like. The access component can include one or more interfaces, eg, communication modules, for communicating with other network nodes. Additionally, the access component can be a base station (or wireless access point) in a cellular type network, where the base stations (or wireless access points) are used to provide wireless coverage areas to a plurality of subscribers. Such base stations (or wireless access points) may be arranged to provide adjacent coverage areas for one or more cellular phones and / or other wireless terminals.

It should be understood that the embodiments and features described herein may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. The various embodiments described herein are described in the general context of methods or processes, which are embodied in a computer-readable medium, comprising computer-readable instructions, such as program code, being executed by computers in networked environments. It may be implemented in one embodiment by a computer program product that is embedded. As noted above, memory and / or computer-readable media include, but are not limited to, read only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), compact disks (CDs), digital general purpose disks (DVDs), and the like. It can include unlimited and removable and non-removable storage devices. If implemented in software, the functions may be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage medium may be any available medium that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media may be desired program code in the form of RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or instructions or data structures. It can be used to convey or store the means, and can include a general purpose or special purpose computer, or any other medium that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose processor.

Also, any connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. For example, when software is transmitted using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, or twisted pair from a website, server, or other remote source, the coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, or twisted pair is included within the definition of the medium. Disks and discs as used herein include compact discs (CDs), laser discs, optical discs, digital versatile discs (DVD), floppy disks and Blu-ray discs, where the disks typically play data magnetically. On the other hand, the discs optically reproduce the data using lasers. Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.

Generally, program modules may include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or execute particular abstract data types. Computer-executable instructions, associated data structures and program modules represent examples of program code for executing the steps of the methods. The particular sequence of such executable instructions or associated data structures represents examples of corresponding acts for implementing the functions described in such steps or processes.

The various illustrative logics, logic blocks, modules and circuits described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be a general purpose processor, digital signal processor (DSP), application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), field programmable gate array (FPGA) or It may be implemented or performed using other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but, in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, eg, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more processors that cooperate with a DSP core, or any other such configuration. Additionally, the at least one processor may include one or more modules operable to perform one or more of the steps and / or operations described above.

For a software implementation, the techniques described herein may be implemented using modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform the functions described herein. Software codes may be stored in memory units and executed by processors. The memory unit may be implemented within the processor and / or external to the processor, in which case it may be communicatively coupled to the processor via various means as is known in the art. In addition, the at least one processor may include one or more modules operable to perform the functions described herein.

The techniques described herein may be used for various wireless communication systems such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA, and other systems. The terms "system" and "network" are often used interchangeably. CDMA systems can implement radio technologies such as Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), cdma2000, and the like. UTRA includes Wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) and other variants of CDMA. Cdma2000 also covers IS-2000, IS-95 and IS-856 standards. The TDMA system may implement radio technology such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). OFDMA systems can implement radio technologies such as Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, Flash-OFDM®. UTRA and E-UTRA are part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a release of UMTS that uses E-UTRA, which uses OFDMA on the downlink and SC-FDMA on the uplink. UTRA, E-UTRA, UMTS, LTE and GSM are described in documents from an organization named "3rd Generation Partnership Project" (3GPP). In addition, cdma2000 and UMB are described in documents from an organization named "3rd Generation Partnership Project 2" (3GPP2). In addition, these wireless communication systems additionally often employ peer-to-peer (eg, user equipment) using unpaired unlicensed spectra, 802.xx wireless LAN, Bluetooth, and any other short or long range wireless communication techniques. -To-user equipment) ad hoc network systems.

Single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) using single carrier modulation and frequency domain equalization is a technique that can be used with the disclosed embodiments. SC-FDMA has similar performance and essentially similar overall complexity as OFDMA systems. SC-FDMA signals have a lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) because of their inherent single carrier structure. SC-FDMA may be used in uplink communications where lower PAPR may be beneficial to user equipment in terms of transmit power efficiency.

In addition, the various aspects or features disclosed herein may be implemented as a method, apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and / or engineering techniques. The term "article of manufacture" as used herein is intended to include a computer program accessible from any computer-readable device, carrier or media. For example, computer-readable media may include magnetic storage devices (eg, hard disks, floppy disks, magnetic strips, etc.), optical disks (eg, compact discs (CDs), digital general purpose discs (DVDs). ), And smart cards and flash memory devices (eg, EPROM, cards, sticks, key drives, etc.). Additionally, various storage media described herein can represent one or more devices and / or other machine-readable media for storing information. The term “machine-readable medium” may include, but is not limited to, a variety of other media capable of storing, containing, and / or delivering wireless channels and command (s) and / or data. In addition, the computer program product may include a computer readable medium having one or more instructions or codes operable to cause a computer to perform the functions described herein.

Furthermore, steps and / or operations of the method or algorithm described in connection with the aspects disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. The software module may reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, hard disk, removable disk, CD-ROM or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An example storage medium can be coupled to the processor such that the processor can read information from and write information to the storage medium. Alternatively, the storage medium may be integrated into the processor. In addition, in further embodiments, the processor and the storage medium may reside in an ASIC. In addition, the ASIC may reside in user equipment (eg, UE 1404 of FIG. 14). In the alternative, the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in user equipment (eg, components 1408, 1410, 1416, and 1418 of FIG. 14). In addition, in some embodiments, the steps and / or actions of the method or algorithm are one or any of the codes and / or instructions on a computer readable medium and / or a machine readable medium that may be included in a computer program product. Can reside as a combination or set of.

While the previous disclosure discusses exemplary embodiments, it should be noted that various changes and modifications may be made herein without departing from the scope of the described embodiments as defined by the appended claims. Accordingly, the described embodiments are intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications and variations that fall within the scope of the appended claims. In addition, although the described embodiments may be described or claimed in the singular, the plural is contemplated unless a limitation on the singular is expressly stated. In addition, some or all of any embodiment may be used with some or all of any other embodiments unless stated otherwise.

For the scope in which the term "comprises" is used in the description or in the claims, such terms are construed in a manner similar to the term "constituting" as interpreted when the term "constituting" is used as a transitional word in a claim. It is intended to be. In addition, the term “or” as used in the description or claims is intended to mean an inclusive “or” rather than an exclusive “or”. That is, unless otherwise specified or apparent from the context, the phrase “X uses A or B” is intended to mean any of the natural implicit permutations. That is, the phrase "X uses A or B" is satisfied by any of the following cases: X uses A; X uses B; Or X uses both A and B. In addition, the singular forms "a" and "an", as used in this application and the appended claims, are intended to be "one or more" unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should generally be interpreted as meaning.

Claims (82)

As a method in a mobile terminal,
Signaling an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each comprising one or more frequency bands; And
For each CA configuration, providing an indication of measurement gap requirements when the mobile terminal operates in the respective CA configuration for frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal. . The method of claim 1,
Generating a capability message that includes an indication of the measurement gap requirements and an ability to operate in the one or more CA configurations; And
Sending the capability message to a serving base station. The method of claim 2,
Generating the capability message is responsive to a request from the serving base station. The method of claim 2,
Generating the capability message is initiated by the mobile terminal in connection with reconfiguration of radio resources. The method of claim 1,
The mobile terminal comprises a plurality of receivers and the measurement gap requirements are based on the capabilities of the plurality of receivers. The method of claim 5,
At least two of the receivers can operate on the same frequency band. The method of claim 1,
And the measurement gap requirements correspond to a logical arrangement of receiver resources at the mobile terminal. The method of claim 1,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a single frequency band having a plurality of component carriers defined within the single frequency band. The method of claim 1,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a plurality of frequency bands defining a plurality of component carriers. The method of claim 1,
Receiving a configuration command for selecting a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations;
Allocating receiver resources for operating on communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configurations; And
Signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration. The method of claim 10,
Receiving a reconfiguration request for another carrier aggregation configuration from the set; And
Signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier aggregation configuration selected from the subset. The method of claim 1,
Receiving a frequency measurement request based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements; And
Signaling an “unable to follow” indication if the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal. As a method in a mobile terminal,
Signaling an ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations; And
Signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements corresponding to the set
Including a method in a mobile terminal. The method of claim 13,
Receiving a configuration command for selecting a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations;
Allocating receiver resources for operating on communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configurations; And
Signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration. As a method at a base station,
Receiving an indication from the mobile terminal of an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations each including one or more frequency bandwidths; And
Receiving an indication of measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal when operating in each CA configuration for the frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal
Including a method at the base station. 16. The method of claim 15,
Receiving from the mobile terminal a capability message that includes the indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in the one or more CA configurations. 17. The method of claim 16,
The capability message is received in response to a request from the base station. 17. The method of claim 16,
And the capability message is received in response to reconfiguration of radio resources requested by the base station. 16. The method of claim 15,
The measurement gap requirements correspond to the capabilities of a plurality of receivers in the mobile terminal. 16. The method of claim 15,
And the measurement gap requirements correspond to a logical arrangement of receiver resources at the mobile terminal. 16. The method of claim 15,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a single frequency band having a plurality of component carriers defined within the single frequency band. 16. The method of claim 15,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a plurality of frequency bands defining a plurality of component carriers. 16. The method of claim 15,
Sending a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations; And
And receiving a signal indicative of inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on allocation of receiver resources in the mobile terminal corresponding to communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration. . 24. The method of claim 23,
Sending a reconfiguration requirement for another carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set; And
Receiving the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set. 16. The method of claim 15,
Transmitting a frequency measurement requirement based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements; And
If the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal, further comprising receiving an “not followed” indication. As a method at a base station,
Receiving an indication from the mobile terminal of the capability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations; And
Receiving an indication of inter-frequency measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal corresponding to the set. The method of claim 26,
Sending a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set; And
Receiving an indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on allocation of receiver resources in the mobile terminal corresponding to communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration. The method of claim 26,
The indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements and an indication of the ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations are received from the mobile terminal in the same message, the same message being received in response to a request from the base station. , Method at the base station. As a mobile terminal,
Means for signaling an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each comprising one or more frequency bands; And
For each CA configuration, means for providing an indication of measurement gap requirements when the mobile terminal operates in the respective CA configuration for frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal. 30. The method of claim 29,
Means for generating a capability message that includes an indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in the one or more CA configurations; And
And means for transmitting the capability message to a serving base station. 31. The method of claim 30,
Means for generating the capability message operates in response to a request from the serving base station. 31. The method of claim 30,
The means for generating the capability message is initiated in connection with reconfiguration of radio resources. 30. The method of claim 29,
And the mobile terminal comprises a plurality of receiving means, and the measurement gap requirements are based on the capabilities of the plurality of receiving means. 34. The method of claim 33,
At least two of the receiving means can operate on the same frequency band. 30. The method of claim 29,
The measurement gap requirements correspond to a logical arrangement of receiving means at the mobile terminal. 30. The method of claim 29,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a single frequency band having a plurality of component carriers defined within the single frequency band. 30. The method of claim 29,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a plurality of frequency bands defining a plurality of component carriers. 30. The method of claim 29,
Means for receiving a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations;
Means for allocating receiver resources for operating on communications bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration; And
Means for signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration. The method of claim 38,
Means for receiving a reconfiguration request for another carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set; And
Means for signaling inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set. 30. The method of claim 29, wherein
Means for receiving a frequency measurement request based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements; And
And means for signaling a "not followed" indication if the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal. As a mobile terminal,
Means for signaling an ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations; And
Means for signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements corresponding to the set. 42. The method of claim 41,
Means for receiving a configuration command for selecting a carrier aggregation configuration from the set;
Means for allocating receiver resources for operating on communications bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration; And
Means for signaling inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration. As a base station,
Means for receiving an indication from a mobile terminal of an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each comprising one or more frequency bands; And
Means for receiving an indication of measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal when operating in each CA configuration for frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal. 44. The method of claim 43,
Means for receiving a capability message from the mobile terminal including the indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in the one or more CA configurations. The method of claim 44,
The capability message is received in response to a request from the base station. The method of claim 44,
The capability message is received in response to a reconfiguration of radio resources requested by the base station. 44. The method of claim 43,
The measurement gap requirement corresponds to the capability of a plurality of receivers in the mobile terminal. 44. The method of claim 43,
The measurement gap requirement corresponds to a logical arrangement of receiver resources at the mobile terminal. 44. The method of claim 43,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a single frequency band having a plurality of component carriers defined within the single frequency band. 44. The method of claim 43,
At least one of the CA configurations includes a plurality of frequency bands defining a plurality of component carriers. 44. The method of claim 43,
Means for sending a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations; And
Means for receiving a signal indicative of inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on allocation of receiver resources in the mobile terminal corresponding to communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration. 52. The method of claim 51,
Means for sending a reconfiguration request for another carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set; And
Means for receiving inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set. 44. The method of claim 43,
Means for sending a frequency measurement request based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements; And
Means for receiving a “not followed” indication if the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal. As a base station,
Means for receiving an indication from the mobile terminal of an ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations; And
Means for receiving an indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal corresponding to the set. 55. The method of claim 54,
Means for sending a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set; And
Means for receiving an indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on allocation of receiver resources in the mobile terminal corresponding to communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration. 55. The method of claim 54,
The indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements and an indication of the ability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations are received from the mobile terminal in the same message, the same message being received in response to a request from the base station. , Base station. An article of manufacture comprising an actual storage medium,
The actual storage medium, if executed by a machine:
Signal an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each comprising one or more frequency bands;
For each CA configuration, provide an indication of measurement gap requirements when the mobile terminal operates in the respective CA configuration for frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal;
Generate a capability message that includes an indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in the one or more CA configurations; And
And instructions for configuring the machine as a mobile terminal for sending the capability message to a serving base station. An article of manufacture comprising an actual storage medium,
The actual storage medium, if executed by a machine:
Receive an indication from the mobile terminal of the capability to operate on a set of predefined carrier aggregation configurations; And
And instructions for configuring the machine as a base station for receiving an indication of the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal corresponding to the set. As a mobile terminal,
A processor; And
When executed by the processor,
Signal an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each comprising one or more frequency bands; And
For each CA configuration, processor executable instructions for configuring the mobile terminal to provide an indication of measurement gap requirements when the mobile terminal operates in the respective CA configuration for frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal. A mobile terminal comprising a memory including the. 60. The method of claim 59,
The mobile terminal is:
Generate a capability message that includes an indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in the one or more CA configurations; And
And further transmit the capability message to a serving base station. 64. The method of claim 60,
And the mobile terminal is configured to generate the capability message in response to a request from the serving base station. 64. The method of claim 60,
And the mobile terminal is configured to generate the capability message in response to reconfiguration of radio resources. 60. The method of claim 59,
And the mobile terminal comprises a plurality of receivers, wherein the measurement gap requirements are based on the capabilities of the plurality of receivers. The method of claim 63, wherein
At least two of the receivers can operate on the same frequency band. 60. The method of claim 59,
And the measurement gap requirements correspond to a logical arrangement of receiver resources at the mobile terminal. 60. The method of claim 59,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a single frequency band having a plurality of component carriers defined within a single frequency band. 60. The method of claim 59,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a plurality of frequency bands defining a plurality of component carriers. 60. The method of claim 59,
The mobile terminal is:
Receive a configuration command for selecting a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations;
Allocate receiver resources for operating on communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration; And
And further configured to signal inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the selected carrier aggregation configuration. 69. The method of claim 68,
The mobile terminal is:
Receive a reconfiguration request for another carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set; And
And further signal for inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier aggregation configuration selected from the subset. 60. The method of claim 59,
The mobile terminal is:
Receive a frequency measurement request based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements; And
And further configured to signal a "not followed" indication if the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal. As a base station,
A processor; And
When executed by the processor:
Receive an indication from the mobile terminal of an ability to operate in one or more carrier aggregation (CA) configurations, each comprising one or more frequency bands; And
A base station comprising a memory comprising processor executable instructions for configuring the base station to receive an indication of measurement gap requirements of the mobile terminal when operating in each CA configuration for frequency bands supported by the mobile terminal; . 72. The method of claim 71,
The base station is further configured to receive a capability message from the mobile terminal including an indication of the measurement gap requirements and the capability to operate in the one or more CA configurations. The method of claim 72,
The capability message is received in response to a request from the base station. The method of claim 72,
The capability message is received in response to a reconfiguration of radio resources requested by the base station. 72. The method of claim 71,
The measurement gap requirements correspond to the capabilities of a plurality of receivers in the mobile terminal. 72. The method of claim 71,
And the measurement gap requirements correspond to a logical arrangement of receiver resources at the mobile terminal. 72. The method of claim 71,
At least one of the CA configurations comprises a single frequency band having a plurality of component carriers defined within the single frequency band. 72. The method of claim 71,
At least one of the CA configurations includes a plurality of frequency bands defining a plurality of component carriers. 72. The method of claim 71,
The base station comprising:
Send a configuration command to select a carrier aggregation configuration from the set of carrier aggregation configurations; And
And receive a signal indicative of inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on allocation of receiver resources in the mobile terminal corresponding to communication bands associated with carriers in the selected carrier aggregation configuration. 80. The method of claim 79,
The base station comprising:
Send a reconfiguration request for another carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set; And
Further configured to receive inter-frequency measurement gap requirements based on the other carrier aggregation configuration selected from the set. 72. The method of claim 71,
The base station comprising:
Send a frequency measurement request based on the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements; And
And further configured to receive an “not followed” indication if the measurement request is incompatible with the logical or physical configuration of the mobile terminal. 83. The method of claim 81,
Signaling the inter-frequency measurement gap requirements comprises signaling one or more band groups, each band group comprising a subset of communication bands with which the mobile terminal can communicate.

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